Tulio Alvarez detained by the National Guard of Venezuela

27.07.05 | A few minutes ago, lawyer Tulio Alvarez has been detained (arrested?) as he was trying to board an airplane to go back to Caracas. No reason given so far, and the reader may note that it was the Nazional Guard, not just the cops that were trying to arrest him, in a very intimidating manner (as far as this blogger can tell so far). Info is still sketchy, but Mr. Alvarez being a good lawyer, he is refusing to surrender or to allow to let the guard search him until someone from the attorney general office shows up. That is right, in this now military regime we live under, the army feels that it can arrest whoever it wants and whenever. But Alvarez has shown some mettle in the past and he is not about to surrender like that to Nazional Guard thugs.

Thus we know already which is the real reason behind this aggression, no matter what charges the government will try to pin on Mr. Alvarez.=== === === ===

Update 2

The motive advanced was that the car in which Tulio Alvarez was being taken to the airport was a car "reported missing". Right...

So, if I get this right, Mr. Alvarez, who was told by hotel personnel that he was being followed, called a friend to give him a ride to the airport and the friend would take his wife and 4 year old kid in a "missing vehicle" to take dangerous international terrorist Tulio Alvarez on a commercial flight to Caracas. Not even, I should point out to try to escape to Miami, which he could have tried from Maracaibo had he wanted to escape. But Tulio Alvarez, like Maria Corina Machado and Alejandro Plaz have that nasty habit of not leaving the country, or coming back to it, and be willing to stand trial which greatly infuriates chavismo that has no real charges to accuse them.

No wonder Tulio Alvarez was adamant in refusing to be searched until a public prosecutor showed up, declaring calmly that he was not going to allow the Nazional Guard plant evidence in his personal belongings as it has become its habit (Carlos Melo and the Lopez Castillo being two of such notorious case where "evidence" was planted to jail the accused folks, even if eventaully the maneuver failed).